A. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a wide-angle zoom lens system designed for a leaf-shuttering compact camera. More particularly, it relates to a wide-angle zoom lens having a zoom ratio of more than 2.8 times while maintaining its compactness and constant wide angle of approximately 74 degrees.
B. Description of the Prior Art
Recently, leaf-shuttering cameras are becoming compact and automated, and zoom lenses whose focal length charges linearly have been widely used.
The zoom lens of the leaf-shuttering camera is required to have a high zoom ratio and a wide angle to take a picture of an object that is far away and is capable of photographing at a large view angle. Accordingly, zoom lenses have been highly developed, and a compact wide-angle zoom lens having a zoom ratio of more than 2.5 times and a view angle of 70 degrees, is disclosed in the Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. Hei 4-58207 (entitled "Compact Wide-Angle Zoom Lens, published on Feb. 25, 1992).
The wide-angle zoom lens system disclosed in the Japanese Patent Unexamined Publication No. 4-58207 has a high zoom ratio of 2.7 times and a maximum view angle of 72 degrees, and meets the two conditions somewhat. However, the lens system has ten elements of lenses and a short focal length from a telephoto angle position which degrades the photographing efficiency as to the object at a long distance.